


we love like fools

by marblecranes



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, holy fuck this is corny
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-14
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-12-15 22:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21025403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marblecranes/pseuds/marblecranes
Summary: It’d been years since the new Margrave Gautier had last seen his dearest ally.





	we love like fools

**Author's Note:**

> day one of sylvix week: reunion

After the war, Sylvain finds himself at a loss as to where he goes. Taking on his father’s title had seemed almost counterintuitive; it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth when he thinks about inheriting the noble title that had chased him his entire life.

Plenty has changed, but his nobility has not. Though now, the difference is that he has the option to abandon it, and ironically, that’s what keeps him from leaving it altogether: the safety net of being able to simply relinquish his name and run.

Much like a certain someone. 

* * *

“He’s here, my lord.” 

Sylvain glances back over his shoulder at the servant standing in the doorframe of his quarters.  _ My lord _ had always felt grating on his ears, and no matter how many times he hears it, he’ll never be able to grow any less unaccustomed to it. He gives a nod in response, “Thank you. You are dismissed.”

The servant gives a hurried bow before leaving. 

In his place, a taller, older man walks in through the door. Sylvain’s features soften, “Felix.”

Felix’s name feels foreign on his tongue now. It’d been about twenty years since the war ended. While there had been a period of time after it where he tried his best to stay in touch, Sylvain eventually found himself too busy to keep trying, and he had little doubt Felix was the same. 

His gaze combs over Felix, giving him a quick look over. 

Twenty years had elapsed, but it seemed like a lifetime. The bags beneath his eyes hang more drastically than they had before, but his eyes still had the same spark of life deep within them, a passive, hidden flame burning beneath amber irises. Countless scars varying in size and depth now mar what was once unblemished porcelain, and Sylvain has no doubt he would discover the same beneath the light armor Felix adorns.

“So what business would the esteemed Margrave Gautier have with me?” There’s just the slightest hint of amusement in Felix’s otherwise deadpan drawl, catlike, in an odd way, and as passive aggressive as it had ever been. Some things simply don’t change.

“There’s some bandits lurking around my territory,” Sylvain waves a hand dismissively, “I have faith that you’ll have little trouble dispatching them.”

“Mere bandits?” Felix laughs. It’s hollow and humorless, “You, a war hero, need my assistance in fending off thieves?”

Red rushes to the tips of his ears, “It’s been twenty years since the end of the war.”

“Very well,” the sellsword snickers, “I assume your lance is too rusty for you to join me as well, oh mighty crest bearer?”

Sylvain hesitates. He truly is two decades rusty, but the temptation of fighting alongside Felix one more time far outweighs the threat of death. Particularly when Sylvain realizes that he has little to lose, anyway. He responds lightly, “In your dreams.”

* * *

Being on the battlefield sparks nostalgia. It’s strange but age had made Felix a far deadlier adversary. What he has lost in physical strength, he now makes up for with experience. There’s another group of mercenaries Sylvain had hired to fight with them, but to him, they all pale in comparison to Felix.

There’s a point where he gets lost in the heat of battle, and charges in a little too far. 

That’s where he gets surrounded by the lot of them, and he finds himself fending off three of them at the same time, lance occupied and on the verge of breaking. After striking one down, he hears the footsteps of someone fast approaching and whirls around on his heel and— 

Time slows.

Felix is in front of him with a sword lodged into his stomach. Sylvain freezes in place, watching blood drip from the wound. A magic spell, undoubtedly from one of the other mercenaries, hits the attacking bandit from the back and he falls.

Sylvain hears a scream. It takes time for him to realize it’s coming from his own mouth.“ _ Felix _ …!”

Felix drops to his knees and clutches at the bleeding wound. His voice is strained, “That was the last of them, right?”

“Yeah, but...” Sylvain stops to think, “Wait, stop talking. I’m going to get you some help.”

Felix nods as Sylvain hoists his arm around his shoulder. He can feel Felix’s shoulders heaving with each breath, and prays to Sothis that he survives.

* * *

The healers had told him that if Sylvain had been minutes slower to get to them, Felix would have died. They put him in a cot to rest, and he waits by it for hours until the other awakens.

Felix’s eyes flutter open, and then when they gain clarity, they widen as he sits up, “Sylva—” 

He throws his arms around Felix and tightly pulls him close. Felix’s body feels warm against his. Solid. Sylvain feels shaky against him, “Are you stupid?”

“Excuse me?” Felix’s arms lift hesitantly, then slowly hug back. 

“You almost died there,” Sylvain says, and then lets go. The rare moment of vulnerability falls from his disposition, shuttered by his usual lighthearted attitude, “Why did you do that?”

“Back in the day, it was always you who saved me.” Felix averts his gaze. His hands fumble on top of the sheets, and now that they aren’t obscured by gloves, Sylvain can see the cuts and calluses riddling the pads of his fingers. “I guess I just wanted to repay the favor.”

He cracks a smile, “I thought you said you didn’t want to go down with me.” 

Felix’s face turns red as he replies defensively, without missing a beat, “That was years ago.”

“Well, it’s not like much has changed, has it, Felix?”

“I suppose not.”

“Except now you’ve gone off on your own.”

Felix turns at the sadness in Sylvain’s voice, searches his face, “I have.”

“Why?” Sylvain asks, “I wrote, but you never replied. After the war, you just renounced your nobility, became a mercenary, booked it, and never turned back.”

Felix goes silent. 

“Felix?”

“I felt guilty,” he finally mumbles, “Still do.”

“About what?”

“Dimitri. Ingrid.”

Sylvain’s gut wrenches.

“They were our friends. Now they’re dead.” Felix exhales a deep sigh. “There. That’s why.”

He remembers now. The day they won the war, everyone celebrated. Everyone but Felix, who went back to his quarters and stayed in for the night. Naturally, Sylvain went to check up on him after all the celebrations were over, but at the time, Felix had insisted it was nothing, and then Sylvain didn’t think anything of it. 

“Just how long have you felt like this?”

“Ever since it happened,” Felix says bitterly.

Sylvain finds himself at a loss for words.

“I’m sorry,” Felix gets out of the bed and tosses on a jacket over his body, over the bandages wrapped around his torso. He starts changing back into his usual light armor, wincing with every movement of his upper body, “I’ve overstayed my welcome, huh? I’ll be on my way on.”

Sylvain’s still quiet, feels like he’s in a trance.

Felix pauses at the door, “Farewell, Margrave Gautier. I wish you the best.”

And then he snaps out of it. He stands up from his chair and hurries over, “Wait, Felix!”

“What?”

He grabs Felix by the shoulders and he turns around. They’re face to face, noses inches apart, “You still have me.”

“Sylvain...” Felix’s voice is hushed, breathless.

“Dimitri might be gone. Ingrid might be gone,” Sylvain speaks quickly, hastily like they only have seconds left together, “But I’m still here.”

Tears well up and stream down the face staring back at him before Felix buries his head in the crook of Sylvain’s shoulder. He reaches up and pat’s Felix’s back, he whispers reassurances just as he did when they were young.

“I love you,” Sylvain finally says, “And when you left, I was scared that I would never have the chance to say it. Stay with me. You don’t have to run away anymore.”

“I didn’t know what to say to you all these years,” the other says between tremors of his shoulders and he covers his face with his hands, “I’m a damn mess. I don’t know what to do anymore, Sylvain.”

Sylvain takes Felix’s face in his hands, and Felix lets him.

“We’ll have the rest of our lives to figure that out together, right?”

When they kiss, it feels like Sylvain had been waiting twenty years for that moment. 

**Author's Note:**

> WHEW first attempt at a ship week this is how weak i am for these dorks


End file.
